The present invention relates to a method for providing measurement data for value documents to a specified purpose of use employing an apparatus for processing value documents and means for carrying out the method. Preferably, the purpose of use of the measurement data may comprise the adaptation of parameters of the apparatus.
In this context, value documents are understood to mean sheet-shaped objects, which represent for example a monetary value and thus shall not be manufacturable at will by unauthorized persons. They hence have features that are not simple to manufacture, in particular to copy, whose presence is an indication of authenticity, i.e. manufacture by an authorized body. Important examples of such value documents are vouchers, checks and in particular bank notes.
Value-document processing apparatuses, in particular bank note processing apparatuses, classify value documents, in particular bank notes, with respect to the value document type, in the case of bank notes with respect to the currency and/or the value and/or the authenticity and/or the quality and/or the orientation. The orientation of a value document is understood to mean in the following, in case of a rectangular value document, one of the four possible positions which can be obtained by rotations of the value document around its longitudinal and transverse axis by 180°, respectively. The quality of a value document is understood to mean in particular its state; the state of bank notes can be given, for example, by allocation to classes such as “fit for circulation” and/or “unfit for circulation” and/or “damaged” or “damaged” in connection with the kind of damage. The value documents can then for example be sorted and, where applicable, deposited in corresponding output regions in dependence on the classification. This will be explained by the example of value documents in the form of bank notes.
The classification is made on the basis of various physical properties of the individual, i.e. respectively processed bank note. Examples of such physical properties are optical properties, for example, color properties, magnetic properties or ultrasonic properties.
Upon the capture of the various physical properties of the individual bank note, i.e. the bank note to be respectively processed or respectively being processed, measurement data are generated by means of sensors upon the processing of bank notes in bank note processing apparatuses, which measurement data are employed for the classification. The measurement data of a respective sensor describe the physical property or properties captured by the respective sensor. Measurement data are in general understood to mean in the following in particular raw data formed by a sensor, which raw data are unprocessed, except for processing operations in the sensor and/or corrections, for example also with respect to calibration and/or elimination of noise or background portions.
The measurement data delivered by the sensors are evaluated in an attached evaluation device which at least partly can also be configured for controlling the value-document processing apparatus or as a control and evaluation device. Upon this evaluation, bank notes features which characterize the type of bank note, the authenticity and the quality of the bank note are ascertained by suitable evaluation methods. In dependence on the ascertained bank notes features, a classification result is then calculated by the evaluation device which subsequently ascertains in which output pocket of the bank note processing apparatus the bank note is to be deposited. When the evaluation device is configured as a control and evaluation device, this can drive a transport device of the bank note processing apparatus in dependence on the classification result.
The evaluation methods and the determination of the classification result must be adapted to the type of the bank notes to be processed and also to the requirements of the operators of bank note processing apparatuses. For this, the evaluation device, preferably at least one evaluating program running therein, is parameterizable, i.e. there are classification parameters whose values are presettable and which are employed upon the evaluation and classification or the determination of the classification result; this adaptation of the classification parameter values, also referred to as an adaptation of the classification parameters, is referred to as adaptation in the following.
For determining suitable classification parameters, the measurement data of corresponding, suitably specified bank notes are often employed for the classification parameter adaptation. More precisely, upon a measurement data acquisition for the specified bank notes with the bank note processing apparatus, in a first step, respective measurement data are captured and stored. In a second step, these measurement data are then used for determining the classification parameter values.
For enabling a good parameterization, upon the measurement data acquisition there are often captured measurement data for bank notes which differ in various processing properties, for example, in their type, in particular currency and/or value, and/or in their quality or state, in their authenticity and/or in their orientation in which they are transported past the sensors in the value-document processing apparatus.
The subsequent parameter determination then requires that the measurement data for the various processing properties can be accessed in a targeted fashion. The measurement data must hence be stored in accordingly different data structures, e.g. files. Moreover, there must be available information as to for which bank note the measurement data were determined.
Upon the provision of measurement data, often large numbers of bank notes are employed, so that very large amounts of data are accumulated, on the one hand, and errors occurring upon the provision of measurement data can only be detected and corrected with some effort, on the other hand.
The present invention is based on the object of stating a method for providing measurement data for value documents to a specified purpose of use employing a value-document processing apparatus for processing value documents, which method allows a simple provision of measurement data, and of providing means for carrying out the method. Preferably, the purpose of use comprises the adaptation of parameters of the value document processing device.